Lost: Cool Calm Pete's Trail Through Snail Mail

Mr. and Mrs. Donald Wilkinson

So like a week ago I got a package in the mail. It was from my friends Don and Alex Wilkinson. It was addressed to Jon "Warlock" Hanks. Mysterious yes, but I was pumped. I love getting shit in the mail from friends, and this time it was a CD to listen to. Sweet!
     A burned CD of hiphop music cryptically labelled "Cool Calm Pete." I guess I missed alot of hiphop during the mid 2000s trying so hard to keep my pulse on punk music. Well I gotta thank the Wilkinsons for sending me this disc in 2013 because it's never too late to appreciate some good ass music.
     It turns out the blank disc was (is) a copy of Lost by rapper Cool Calm Pete. Smooth sultry grooves, with just the right edge of creepiness to compliment the directly mellow rhymes of this NYC-based Korean rapper. Down with Def Jux, you know the boy can rap and the beats are not to be trifled with. I like the attitude of this guy. His style is aggressive without being phony. Seemingly more influenced by Wu Tang and Rakim than Company Flow, he wears the "backpacker" label on his sleeve without coming off as a corny wigger. 

The boy Pete

    At a time (2005) when every new MC was trying to be Eminem, Cool Calm Pete comes off as very comfortable in his own skin. And sound the gong, because as records like this continue to come out (and the fact that I am writing about them 8 years late) proves that hiphop has truly gone universal. Maybe this is already an overstatement at this stage in the game, but rap music no longer belongs to one culture. As Pete asserts on "Tune In", "the new American pastime is rap." Whether a marketing ploy or a an organic shift in cultural attitudes, rap music is for everybody, even the nerdy Korean kid from Queens.
     Lost is a good ride from start to finish, from its eerie down-East directions introduction to its obligatory Def Jux-esque guest spots (RJD2 and Blockhead respectively) filling out the end. Thirstin Howl III and Jungle Mike Gee also make modest appearances, ever upping the credibility of Cool Calm Pete, although he really needs no assistance from the established.
     Modern production techniques are blended nicely with raw turntabilsm. Familiar breaks intermingle with space-aged effects and violin strings, making it hard for the listener to place what era this shit came out in. I'm not surprised that it came out in 2005, but I wouldn't have been to learn that it was a recent release, either.
    So what happened to this dude? Or am I just proving that I know nothing about the current rap game as well by asking that question? Why has this dude not blown? I'm not some guru or anything, but how had I not heard this record until eight years after its release? The answers to these questions are I don't know and also who cares? Because listening to Lost will probably keep me distracted from wondering for another eight years. Hell, A Prince Among Thieves still blows my mind.
Thanks, Donkey.